Bonding With Wally
by ashehole
Summary: With Serena gone, it was just Collin and the animal left in the house. He never liked the raccoon before... But they were all they had now. This is the short story of the bond between man... and Wally. Takes place between Book 12 and 13.


**Title: Bonding With Wally**

**Summary: With Serena gone, it was just Collin and the animal left in the house. He never liked the raccoon before... But they were all they had now. This is the short story of the bond between man and... Wally. :D Takes place between The Becoming and The Final Eclipse.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. However, I do have a raccoon that is living in my room that I have named Wally. He's tearing up my ceiling because I stole his room from him. Raccoons are vindictive. **

He never did like the thing. Was it a rodent? A rodent with opposable thumbs and a thing for tearing up only his things? Yes, that was Wally. How many times had Collin gone into his room to find his homework ripped to shreds, his socks flung over the room, and his boxers missing? Too many times, that's how many! How many times had he told Serena that wild animals made terrible pets, and she would just cling to the dumb animal and say that Wally was perfect?

Now, as he stared at the poor, depressed animal, he realized that, well... So, maybe the raccoon wasn't so bad. Having a raccoon for a pet was really unique. Loads of people had dogs and cats and goldfish. How many could claim Wally the Raccoon?

The Killingsworth residence could for sure.

The depression began a week after Serena's disappearance. Wally moped. He stopped tearing Collin's things up. He rarely ate. All the raccoon did was sleep in Serena's bed. Days, nights. He barely left that room. Collin had to feed him in there, buy him a litter box so that he wouldn't ruin Serena's things, not that the rodent ever would.

It was depressing to see a depressed raccoon. Bad enough that there was no Serena, that Jimena couldn't give him the right answers about what had happened. All she said was that the Atrox had captured her... And there was nothing Collin could do about it. He didn't have the power. Jimena didn't have the power. It was completely up to the girls themselves to free themselves.

How did he even begin to explain that to a raccoon?

What did a raccoon know of ancient magic and the Atrox and goddesses?

No, all Wally knew was Serena. She was God. If animals knew what God even was...

It started slowly.

Collin sat down on the bed next to where Wally was curled up. The bandit barely glanced at Collin. His hand reached out slowly, resting on top of the soft fur that graced Wally's skull. It felt weird, comforting the animal. So, Collin got up and left.

He didn't want to give up, though. Not yet. The raccoon loved his sister. He missed her as much as Collin did. Well, okay... Collin wasn't dying from Serena's loss... But he was sure that if he was the pet, that, yeah... His heart would probably be broken, too.

He came back the next day. He put his hand on top of Wally's head... And he actually began to pet the poor creature.

The day after that... He began telling Wally stories. He spoke about Serena, about their childhood and the funny things that she would do when they were young. He continued to pet the animal, enjoying the short fur running against his hands. Wally ate half a bowl of his food that night.

The days passed slowly in that way, with Collin coming in, feeding Wally, petting him, and talking about Serena. Wally seemed to respond. He ate a little bit more each day. He even sat up, looking up at the giant that was his God's brother with... Was that maybe excitement flashing dimly in the animal's round, brown eyes?

"She didn't mean to leave us, buddy. You know that, right?" Collin said to Wally as he picked him up and placed him down in his lap. Wally stared up at him, his head cocked to the right a bit as though he were intently listening to the garbled words he knew to be God Speak. "That's just what she had to do. She had to save her friend... That's how Serena was. She would do anything for her friends... Even suffer the consequences of some things."

Wally chattered at him, and Collin nodded. A part of him felt silly, like how could he even understand what the beast was saying? The other part of him, though, knew what the raccoon was telling him.

Maybe that was really just grief.

"I'm sure she's fine. She'd probably roll her eyes at us right now, if she saw how worried we both are over her," Collin replied, frowning gently as he imagined his baby sister. She probably would hug them both, though, and apology profusely for making them worry in the first place.

Wally curled up in his lap, tired of talking, and closed his eyes for a nap.

--

"I brought you some apples, for Wally," Jimena said to him as she held the bag up when Collin opened the door.

He smiled wide for her. He didn't want her to worry over him. He was actually a lot better than she probably imagined him to be. Talking to Wally was like a therapy of sorts.

"Thanks. I'm trying to get him to eat other stuff now that he eats the whole bowl."

"You think he's getting better?" Jimena asked him as she closed the door behind her, following her boyfriend into the kitchen.

Collin shrugged. "I don't know. I hope so. Serena would be upset if she knew that Wally died on my watch."

She placed her hand inside of her boyfriend's, squeezing tightly. "I'm sure that she'd know how hard you worked and wouldn't be too upset. She knows how caring you can be."

"She doesn't know that I actually like the furry beast, though."

"Don't worry," Jimena told him, squeezing his hand again. He nodded, trying to take her words to heart.

--

Wally didn't seem as depressed as he did a few weeks ago, but Collin could see a glint in his big eyes that told him that he was still sad, still heart broken that Serena hadn't returned yet. Collin perfectly understood. He felt the raccoon's pain of loss for his sister.

He had a scary, stomach-dropping feeling that... Collin had a feeling that Serena wouldn't come back.

He didn't have the heart to tell Wally...

But the animal was pretty smart. Maybe he had already guessed that himself. Maybe he already knew that God wasn't coming back to rub on him, or hug him, or tell him how much she loved him.

Collin scratched behind Wally's ears, letting his tears slip from his eyes, roll down his cheeks, and drip from his chin as he faced the harsh realization that Serena was never going to come home. Never.

_Poor raccoon_, Collin thought as he tried to mask his weeping as pity for Wally when he knew that he was crying for himself, for his sister, for his lost family.

--

Wally wasn't getting as better as Collin had hoped. The raccoon was all he had left of Serena... But he should have realized that Wally wouldn't have really wanted to stick around if he knew she wasn't coming back. Collin didn't blame him, really. He was never very good to Wally until the end, anyway. He would miss their talks and Wally's loud chatter at him.

He would even miss seeing his underwear disappear to wherever Wally decided to hide them.

There he was, sad little raccoon... Curled up on his favorite spot on Serena's bed. Cold. Not breathing. Just gone.

Collin knew that he had died from a broken heart.

Sighing, the surfer left the room, searching for a box to place Wally in. The beast deserved a decent burial. Serena would have wanted that. Hell, maybe he would even give Wally a pair of his boxers, to hide in the Raccoon Afterlife.

He pulled out his cell, speed dialing the only other thing still on the Earth that hadn't left him. "He died, Jimena..."

"I'll be right over, Collin."

He didn't even realize that he was crying until he placed the body into the box gently, his tears soaking the fur he had grown to love so much.


End file.
